Stone's Throw
by RainbowBetty
Summary: A particularly brutal case involving torture and rape triggers Sam's PTSD, and he finally decides he has no choice but to leave hunting life for good and try to live the normal life he'd found with Amelia. But when Dean is kidnapped, they discover it's not just a case… it's personal. Not graphic, but obviously: trigger warnings for the above. Early season 8. Complete!
1. Chapter 1

"This is a bad one."

Dean slid the open file across the table at the diner to Sam, and picked up his burger. Sam looked up from his laptop screen and frowned. "I know. How are you even hungry right now?"

Dean shrugged, chewing, and talked around a mouthful of food. "I don't stop being hungry because we're working. If I did, I'd never eat."

Sam dropped his eyes for a second. It was something he'd been wanting to say to Dean since he'd been back from purgatory, that Dean never stopped. He never stopped looking for something to hunt or kill. It was like Dean had been switched _on_ and didn't know how to stop, but any suggestion that it was too much from Sam would mean Sam wanted to quit altogether and leave hunting, leave Dean. Because Sam _had_ quit. He'd left Dean alone out there.

There was never a right time, or a right way, to say it. So he just kept his mouth shut, and they kept up a pace that Sam suspected was killing them both.

Sam reached across the table and picked up the case file Dean had pushed toward him.

"Where did you get this?"

"This is the file from one of the patients at the psych ward – I'm sorry, _inpatient facility,"_ Dean corrected with a grin.

"It's not funny, Dean. What happened to these people seriously messed them up."

"I know it's not funny. Nothing we do is funny, it doesn't mean I can't still joke about it. Jesus, Sam. You used to have a sense of humor. Did you lose that too while I was gone?"

Sam pressed his lips together and didn't say anything while Dean puffed up like he'd just scored another point. Sam knew this game. Let him think he'd won, and he'd get bored and move on. True to form, after a moment, Dean brought his attention back to the case.

"The pattern, the brutality of it, the way they were tortured, I dunno man. There's something weird going on here. Like our kind of weird," Dean said, before taking another bite of his burger.

Sam removed the paperclip holding the pictures to the inside of the manila folder and looked through them, wincing at the images he saw. The girl didn't look like she should still be alive. Bound, gagged, beaten, bloodied…

Dean looked at him appraisingly. "You gonna lose the lunch you didn't have?"

He tapped the pictures back into a stack and set them down. "You don't think people could have done this?"

"Five different victims, each of them tortured in exactly the same way but left alive for some reason? People are sick, Sam, but the kind of sicko it would take to be a serial torturer of this magnitude isn't usually this… deliberate, and I hate to say it but the vics aren't usually left alive after something like this. It's saying 'demon' to me."

"You think we need to talk to this girl?"

"She's apparently the most coherent of the people that have been attacked. And that's not saying a lot."

* * *

Jillian Reynolds was twenty-five years old and a recent college graduate when her world ended.

She was found in a dark room three days after she'd been taken, unconscious and strapped to a table. The medical examiner reported that she had been sexually assaulted and sustained numerous internal injuries in addition to visible lacerations and bruises, but that the extent of the damage could not be fully assessed until she regained consciousness.

When she did wake up, she couldn't remember her own name. But she screamed about black eyes.

Her doctor advised the two investigators who came to question her about her ordeal that it was unlikely she would be able to offer any insight. Her moments of lucidity were rare, and even in those moments she seemed unable to verbalize the atrocities that had been done to her.

Sam had to ask, "Is it in her best interest to avoid talking about it?"

Dean glared at him, and Sam shot him a look.

"No," replied her doctor. "We find that it's best for trauma patients to confront their past rather than bury it, however in some cases a patient builds a wall that is simply too difficult to break down."

Sam frowned, obviously turning something over in his head, unsure what to say next.

"Thank you," Dean said, closing the gap of silence Sam had left. "I'm sure anything we can learn will be helpful."

He led them through a secure hallway, buzzing through a series of locked doors until they reached the small room where Jillian was kept and cared for. Through the window, they could see a young woman with tangled, brown hair sitting in the middle of her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest. This door was locked as well, and her doctor buzzed it open. Jillian startled at the noise and looked up, eyes wild.

"Good afternoon, Jillian," said her doctor. "These men are investigators on your case. They're here to help you."

He didn't wait for a response, clearly expecting that one would not be forthcoming, and he turned back to Dean and Sam. "I'll be just down the hall. When you're finished, you can press the call button and one of the nurses will escort you out."

Dean nodded.

Sam took in the close confines of the room. Small bed. Chair and desk. Sink and toilet. He heard the door click closed behind the doctor as he left, and he drew in a breath, trying to see the space around him as larger than it was. He pulled the chair over to the bed to sit across from the Jillian, who was eyeing him apprehensively.

"Hi, Jillian," he said with warmth in his voice. "I'm Sam."

Jillian buried her face against her knees and shook her head. "No. No no no no. Please."

Dean and Sam exchanged a look.

"Jillian, we—" Dean started.

"Black eyes. Black. No. Please. Please, stop! No. He said..." Jillian looked at Sam. Then she drew back and her eyes narrowed. "Sam," she said.

Sam smiled at her encouragingly. "That's right," he said. "It's all right. We know about the man with the black eyes, and I promise—"

"It's you. You're the one he wants back. His little _bitch. _Sam. Sam Winchester."

Sam stood up suddenly and nearly fell over the chair behind him as the walls of the room narrowed further, his lungs refusing to take in air. "Sam?" Dean said, his hand on Sam's arm, but Sam shook him off.

"I need—I just—I need a minute," Sam stammered, backing toward the door.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

He wasn't okay. But he nodded, pushing the call buzzer and unlocking the door to the room. He needed to be out. _Out._

"You stay," he told Dean, motioning to Jillian. "You—I'll just—Right out here."

He focused on making his breathing slow and steady in the narrow hallway, drawing comfort from the solid feel of the smooth, cool tiled wall against his back to calm the nausea swelling over him. He closed his eyes, trying to push Lucifer's voice, his mocking smile, out of his head. _No, it's over. _He ran his thumb over the scar on his palm, feeling the bumpy, raised tissue that still grounded him when he needed it. _Out._

"Sam."

He opened his eyes and saw Dean looking at him with concern. Sam quickly dropped his hands to his sides and clenched them into fists. "I'm fine," Sam replied to the unasked question. He swallowed hard, resolve finally building in him. "Dean? I don't think I can—"

"We'll nail this bastard, Sam. I mean it. Don't let it fuck with you. Clearly we were right, this has demon written all over it. That little stunt back there proves it."

"Dean, really. Listen…"

"Let's head over to the apartment building where she was found and see if there's anything to go on there. Then why don't you see if you can hack in to the security camera footage?"

Sam hesitated, wrestling with words just out of reach. Finally, he nodded. "Sure." It felt bitter and wrong but he swallowed it and followed Dean out through the locked passage, hoping that outside it would be easier to breathe.

* * *

Some part of him already knew what he would find in each of the case files. He didn't want to look. He didn't want to see the painstakingly drawn lines of the knife blade in the photos, the too-familiar knotting of the ropes. Couldn't bear to read the word _torture _or the word _rape_ written in the reports. It was too much, too close.

_He held Sam down with hands that were impossibly strong, hurt him in ways he couldn't have imagined._

His mind shrank back from the memories like putting his hand on a hot stove, and he quickly shoved them back into the darkest corners of his consciousness with practiced efficiency. He didn't want to think about that.

Cas had put his broken soul back together, scarred over the worst of what Lucifer had done to him, but he couldn't erase it. It would never be gone. And whatever demon was thrill-seeking now topside at the expense of these humans was calling Sam out, using his name, looking for _Lucifer's bitch._

He didn't know why, and didn't want to know. He felt bad for the people involved, but at the same time he wished Dean wasn't so keen on hunting anything that moved since he'd come back from purgatory, because Sam wanted to run.

He wanted to run as far away from this case as they could get. He wished he could tell Dean how much it scared him that the nightmares tried so hard to bury could be so easily drawn to the surface. When he could go days without being triggered by flames and the smell of sulfur, he called it a success, he called himself healed, while deep down he knew it was a lie.

This case wasn't going to let him lie. It was going to throw Hell right in his face and break every defense.

He wanted to tell Dean how scared he was. But Dean wouldn't want to hear it. Dean had just spent a year _not_ being scared, and what right did Sam have to make demands? Dean needed this hunt.

He dug his thumb into the palm of his hand and closed his palm into a fist around it, leaning his forehead down onto his two fists as if he could force the thoughts to stay down just by pressing on them. This was how Dean found him a few moments later.

"Hey, Sam. Napping on the job?"

Sam jerked his head up. "Find anything?" he asked by way of redirection.

"No, not really. I checked with a couple of folks back at the apartment building, and at the warehouse where the first victim was found, and nobody really saw anything. What did you find out about the injuries?"

Sam hesitated. "I—I don't know. They're…"

Dean folded his arms over his chest. Sam looked up at him and shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted.

Dean snatched the file off the table. "Did you even look at this?"

"Yes. Kind of."

"Sam, come on. I feel like I'm doing this by myself here. Are you even trying? Do you even _want_ to gank this demon?"

Sam gritted his teeth. "Dean…"

_"What,_ Sam?"

Sam shook his head angrily. "No, you know what?" He snapped the lid closed on his laptop and stood up. "You're right. I can't do this. I tried, but I can't. I'm sorry. I quit."

Dean's expression morphed from righteous indignation to confusion. "You quit? As in, you _quit?"_

"I quit. As in… I'm done. As in, I need to go." He exhaled and bit his lip, quickly ducking his head as he brushed past Dean to pack his stuff and leave, because now that he'd reached his decision he needed to get out before he changed his mind.

* * *

_To be continued._


	2. Chapter 2

Amelia hadn't planned to take Sam back.

After he essentially left her without a word in the middle of the night and never called again, she'd decided her instincts had been right all along. He was a weirdo. It was her own fault, her own damn vulnerable fault, for letting herself be drawn into a relationship with someone who was clearly even more needy and unstable than she was. It just _figured_ that after Don she would have gone looking for something to fix, and this messed-up loser had just happened to cross her path at exactly the right moment.

It was her own fault for fooling herself into thinking there was something there when there wasn't. She was damn lucky the worst he'd done was flake out on her and _leave_ instead of hacking her to pieces in her sleep.

But for some reason, when Sam's number came up on her cell, she couldn't stop herself from answering it.

"Fucking idiot," she cursed herself before clicking _accept._ "Never could resist a wounded animal. Even when it bites you."

There was something wrong with Sam's voice. In all the times she'd heard him talk about his brother, heard him break down and lose himself in his grief, he'd never sounded like _this._ "A-Amelia?"

"Sam," she said. "Sam, are you okay?"

For a moment, she wondered if he'd hung up. Or if the connection had dropped. And then she heard a sound on the other line, a small intake of breath from Sam that twisted her heart in her chest. Sam was crying.

"What's happened, Sam? Is it Dean?"

"No." Sam drew in another breath, seeming to collect himself. "I'm sorry to call you, Amelia. I… Sorry I didn't call before."

"It's okay."

"You have no idea how much I..." His voice broke again. "I missed you so much."

_Fuck._ Amelia was already kicking herself before the words were out of her mouth but she couldn't help it. "Come home, Sam. Whatever it is, it'll be okay. Why don't you just come home?"

* * *

He knocked. It should have felt strange because this had been _their_ house, but in Sam's mind it had never really been his. The only place he had ever really belonged was with Dean. But when Amelia answered, her soft hair silhouetted against the warm light of their living room and a gentle smile on her face, Sam had to close his eyes for a moment because he was almost overwhelmed by how _right_ it felt, how easy it would be to let himself believe that was his place in life, his normal.

Amelia took his arm, her brow furrowing slightly, and led him inside. "Okay. What's going on with you? Are you in trouble?"

Sam shook his head. "No. Not like you're thinking."

"Dean's okay?"

Sam nodded, rubbing his thumb over the ugly scar on his left palm. It was a habit she'd noticed that he had, something he did almost unconsciously whenever he seemed worried or distracted.

"But _you're_ not," she guessed.

Sam sighed, meeting her eyes, and he looked troubled. "There's a case," he admitted, and she guessed he was talking about the work he and Dean used to do, the private investigator stuff. "People are…" He stopped, pressed hard into the scar. "You know what? Never mind, you don't need to worry about it. Just. Thank you. For letting me come by. I won't stay if you don't want me to. I understand."

"Stay the night at least, Sam. You look like shit. Honestly, I'm not letting you drive away from here with that on my conscience."

He smiled at her gratefully. _Always taking in strays,_ she thought, trying to tell herself it was bitterness that fueled that tight feeling she had in her chest, but knowing it was nothing but affection. She had missed him too.

* * *

No sooner had her offer to stay been accepted than Sam was banging around in her cupboards and burrowing through her pantry. She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, watching him unravel for a moment before she interjected softly, "Sam? You looking for something?"

He held up a container and shook it. "Is this really all the salt you have?"

She came up behind him and felt him stop, his body tensing.

"I can run out to the store," he offered, not looking at her. "The convenience store on the corner, it should still be open. This isn't going to even cover the front of the house."

She put a hand on his back, and he stiffened and moved away from her touch. He handed her the container of salt. "I might have some in my bag. Out in the car."

"Sam, what's this about?"

"I know this sounds crazy—"

"Sam!"

She slammed the salt down on the counter. He jumped, and for a moment the just looked at each other until Sam took a deep breath in through his nose. "This isn't gonna make a lot of sense," he said tentatively. "But I… I need to make sure you're safe. Okay?"

"So, am I…" she gestured to the salt, "dangerously under-seasoned? Or what?"

The corners of his mouth tugged back into the barest shadow of a grin, hinting at those dimples she adored. "Something like that," he said. "I think I'm going to need you to trust me. Because I can't explain it without sounding like a crazy person."

"Not a chance." She sidled up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, openly flirting. "You're _acting_ like a crazy person. And you haven't earned even a bit of trust from me. Not yet."

He went still again, and didn't quite pull away, but she sensed something deeply wrong and distant about the way he just brought his hands up to her shoulders, as if he were feeling his way through this blindfolded and numb.

"Oh." She pulled away, trying not to be offended. "Right. Never mind. I'll go get you your _salt."_ _Fucking headcase. _She headed for the door and grabbed her jacket while Sam stood rooted to the spot, looking out of it. "Are you particular? Sea, kosher, iodized, pickling?" She shook her head as she left, and Sam didn't make a move to stop her.

* * *

_The ropes holding him burned his skin as the blade drew blood, and oh god, it hurt. It hurt. And then the pain vanished, and Lucifer's voice echoed in his head. "I'll let you in on a little secret, Sam. Sometimes the threat of something is worse than the thing itself. Sometimes your own fear is worse than anything I could ever do to you."_

_He held the point of the knife menacingly above Sam's eye, and Sam shrank back, trying to fight back the rush of irrational fear that Lucifer evoked in him. He tried to reason with himself, that his eyes weren't important, that pain didn't matter. It didn't work. "Please!" he blurted out. "Don't!"_

_Lucifer smiled. "Maybe I'll take something else then." He trailed the edge of the blade down Sam's cheek, down his exposed neck, and Sam looked away._

_His gaze locked on Adam. _It's okay,_ Adam's eyes said, eyes that were filled with just as much pain and despair but still found room to carry Sam's. Because Sam did this for him. _It's okay, it's okay. I'm here.

* * *

Amelia shook him out of the nightmare, and Sam sat bolt upright on the couch with a cry. He looked down and realized with a flush of embarrassment that he had grabbed her wrist, and she was now trying to twist away from him like he was a convicted felon.

He let go with a mumbled apology and ran his hand through his sweaty, disheveled hair. He was breathing hard.

"You were dreaming," Amelia said, frowning, rubbing her wrist. "I think. Or else, someone in here was being murdered."

"What?"

"Is that new? Yelling like that in your sleep? Because I never heard you do that." She looked genuinely concerned.

"Sorry. Bad dream. I guess."

She looked at him critically. "Sam…" she started to say. Then she changed her mind. "But I guess it's none of my business. Not anymore."

"Amelia."

She patted his knee. "You keep your secrets. I'm going back to bed."

Sam watched her go. Then sighed, and leaned his head back against the cushions of the couch, feeling incredibly lost.

He was still awake, still sitting cross-legged on the couch with his thumb pressed into his scar, when she came downstairs in the morning. The haunted look hadn't left his eyes.

"I'm making coffee," Amelia said resolutely. "Then you're calling Dean."

* * *

Dean had worked his way through interviews with all five of the torture victims, although he had to conclude that the word _interview_ was something of a stretch. One man was still in intensive care, and the others…

Dean shook his head, flipping through his notes at the local coffee shop where he had stopped to regroup after visiting with Meredith Williams, a mother of two who had been jumped by the demon on her way home from picking up dinner after work. She had stared blankly at Dean with eyes that clearly no longer saw the world around her. Lost in her own head.

He didn't like to see that look in people. He hated that demons thought they had the right to walk the earth at all. They were like cockroaches on a white-tiled kitchen floor, and the sooner they could close the gates of Hell for good…

The sooner _he_ could close it, he corrected himself. Because apparently keeping the world safe wasn't exactly at the top of Sam's to-do list anymore.

If he was honest with himself, he'd been expecting Sam to go running back to Amelia and his _normal life_ eventually. But it still hurt. Almost as much as the knowledge that Sam had written him off for dead.

He pushed it out of his mind for now, because it didn't matter anyway. Sam was gone. Sam had left him on his own, and he still had a job to do even if it meant he had to do it by himself. It wasn't the first time he'd had to go it alone, and it surely wouldn't be the last. Time to start buying what the universe was selling, Winchester.

His phone vibrated in his back pocket, and he pulled it out with a glance at the display. He recognized the name of the hospital where Jillian Reynolds was being kept. "Roeser," he answered.

"Agent Roeser?" said the doctor who Dean and Sam had met with about Jillian. "You asked me to call you about Jillian Reynolds, if she, ah, made any further statements regarding the name 'Sam Winchester.'"

Dean's spine straightened in his seat, fumbling for a pen and flipping open the manila folder to the notes Sam had taken beside the girl's file. "And has she?"

"Is Sam Winchester the name of a suspect in the case?"

"No, there's no connection," Dean said quickly, catching the pen cap between his teeth and yanking it off. "Why? Has she said something that would implicate him?"

The man hesitated. "Well, it's not my area, so obviously you can be the judge of that. Following the name 'Sam Winchester,' she's repeated a couple of phrases that seemed to be associated with the name, at least in the way she was saying them. They were: 'all your fault,' and 'you did this to me.'

"Huh," Dean said, pen poised over the report. His eyes traveled along the margin of neatly justified type where Sam's notes hung in blue ballpoint pen. _Threat/fear would have been worse than actually doing it,_ said Sam's handwriting next to a paragraph of graphic description that Dean glossed over instead of reading. His brows drew together. Further down, Sam had scrawled: _"Take something" = rape._

"Even in a patient as confused as Jillian," her doctor went on, "I'm sure you can see why it would seem as though she's clearly attempting to put a name to her perpetrator. Even if it's not the correct name. It may be a lead worth looking into. I actually consider it quite a significant—"

"It is. I'll look into it." Dean needed to go. There was more here that Sam knew that he hadn't told him, and he had a feeling he wasn't going to like it.

"Thank you. Oh, and one last thing! This may just be her way of soothing herself, but typically after she says all these things, she'll lapse into a repetition of the phrase _'it's okay.'"_

Dean's gaze fell on Sam's blue pen marks, a phrase written smaller than the others, almost tucked away toward the bottom of the page. A lullaby, a reassurance, a mantra. _It's okay. It's okay. I'm here._

"I thought it might be important."

"It might," Dean agreed, running a fingertip over Sam's words.

* * *

_To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** After watching 8.08 Hunteri Heroici, I have a strong feeling that that this Amelia storyline is about to be Carvered, but I'm okay with that. Just be aware, possible AU ahead.

* * *

Sam was perched on the edge of the coffee table across from her – and Amelia _hated_ that. But she bit back the urge to snap at him to please sit in a chair. His leg jumped a nervous, staccato rhythm, the phone balanced against his knee.

She leaned forward and put her hand over his, pressing down on his leg to stop the frantic bouncing. "Call _Dean,"_ she said in a tone of voice that closed the discussion.

Sam scrunched his face together in that _way_ he had and looked at her plaintively.

"Whatever it is, there's not enough salt in the world to keep it out. Is there?"

He looked at her for a moment as if considering whether she might really understand, then stood up and tucked his arms around his chest. "He doesn't want to hear it," Sam said softly. "Trust me."

"You're his brother. He _wants_ to hear it."

Sam gave a small shake of his head and held the phone back out to her. "Later," he promised, pain written in his eyes.

"Sam, no." She left the phone hanging between them, still resting in his outstretched hand. "Come on. It's just a phone call."

He set his phone down deliberately on the coffee table between them.

"Okay," Amelia said. "Point made."

"Listen, I'm gonna take a walk. I just need to clear my head, okay? Then I'll call him. I will."

She yelled after him, "Take your _phone,_ Sam." But he either didn't hear her or ignored it. She heard the door close and sighed with frustration. "God! Like I need this. What the hell am I even doing?"

She let Riot outside and picked up the morning paper, then poured herself another cup of coffee.

On the table, Sam's phone began vibrating loudly with an incoming call. She glanced up briefly, then ignored it, letting Sam's voicemail answer. A few minutes later, the phone vibrated again. Amelia huffed loudly and walked over to it, muttering about having _told_ Sam to take his damn phone with him.

The display said _Dean._ Dammit. All right. She picked it up and answered it.

"Dean? It's Amelia." Then, after a pause, she amended uncertainly, "I'm Sam's… Did he…?"

"Amelia. Hi." The way he said her name was like trying it on for size, something known and yet so far unknown. Amelia felt a trickle of relief that Sam had at least mentioned her to his brother. She had meant _that_ much to him. Then Dean said, "Where's Sam, is he okay?"

"He's… okay. He just went out for a walk. Actually. Dean. _Is_ he okay? I mean, he basically showed up on my doorstep after all this time, and I mean, obviously he's been through hell but I don't have a clue what this is all about."

Dean seemed caught off guard. "He talks about it? I mean, guess that shouldn't be a surprise. I know you two were together a while, I just didn't realize Sam… He's never wanted to talk about it. I didn't even realize you knew about any of it."

"About what?"

"The cage."

_The cage? _Amelia heard the word but couldn't put any context around it. "R-right," she stammered, trying to fumble her way through the conversation, to find the clues in what Dean was giving her. Because,_ what?_ "He doesn't…" _Cage?_ "He… he has nightmares, that's it."

"I thought he was over it. Christ, I'm such an idiot. You don't get over something like that."

Amelia opened her mouth but nothing came out. She kept trying to put the two images together in her head. _Sam,_ the tall, strong man with the sad eyes and thoughtful smile who fixed things and kissed her like she was the only one in the world who mattered. And _cage._ How did _cage_ fit with _Sam?_ It tied her stomach in knots to even imagine possible scenarios, her kind and gentle Sam locked away somewhere for God knows what reason. She didn't like the word cage, didn't like its implications. She wanted Dean to take it back. She wanted this association gone from her understanding of Sam.

She was distantly aware of the fact that Dean was still talking to her. She shook her head, pulling out one of her kitchen chairs and easing down into it. "I'm sorry, what?" she said.

"This case we're working," Dean said. "I need to talk to him. Can you tell him to call me? I'm on my way to Texas now. I'll meet up with him."

Sam had mentioned a case. Amelia flashed back over all of Sam's weird behavior since coming back into her life, and suddenly it started to make sense. "The case was bothering him," she said. "Really bothering him. Is it connected to…" She didn't want to say it. She swallowed. "To the cage?" _What happened to him?_ She both needed to know, and desperately didn't want to.

She could almost hear the smile in Dean's voice. "He told you what we do? You must really be something special."

"I… I'll tell Sam to call you."

"Thanks. Really, Amelia. Thank you."

* * *

When Sam came back, she could tell he'd been running. A thin sheen of sweat beaded over his forehead and chest, but he looked calmer. Amelia wished she felt the same.

"Dean called," she said.

Trouble flickered over Sam's eyes. "He did?"

"Sam…" She stepped closer to him, biting her lip. "We've always been able to talk to each other, you know that. Talking helps. _You_ taught me that."

He smiled at her, a bit confused. "Sure. Of course. What's wrong?"

"You tell me, Sam. I mean... God, what... what _happened_ to you? What did..." she stopped and reached out, clasping his hand in hers, twining her fingers through his. She looked down, at the scar on his hand, the thing he was constantly touching, worrying at. "Oh, Sam!" she said softly. "This is from the cage, isn't it."

Color drained from Sam's face, and he snatched his hand back. "What?"

"Dean told me. Well, he didn't _tell_ me, but_—_"

"No. No he didn't. Dean wouldn't." Sam took a step away. _"Christo."_

"Sam!"

_"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus—"_

She grabbed him by the shoulders, but he shrugged her off easily, and they both gasped in shock when she lost her balance and toppled backward, landing hard on the floor. "Sam!" she cried, tears springing to her eyes. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

He was edging toward the door with his eyes on her, watching her as if he expected her to leap at him and rip his throat out. "Sam?" she tried. Without taking his eyes off of her, he grabbed his phone and car keys from the table and bolted.

He ran, dialing Dean, his breath coming in short, stabbing gasps, and he all but fell against his rental car parked in the street. His hand shook as he tried to fit the key in the lock.

"Sammy?"

"Dean! Amelia—she's—"

"Sam, hang on, are you okay? Where are you?"

"No, not okay, no. Dean. Did you—you didn't tell Amelia—about hell, about the cage. Right?"

"What? No, of course I didn't, I don't go around spilling our crap to people. But I thought—"

"She's possessed, Dean. Demon." He took a deep breath and turned the ignition, glancing back toward the house.

"Shit! I just talked to her."

"You did?"

"Sam, I'm on 285 now. I'm coming to you, okay? Is there somewhere we can meet up?"

Sam shifted the car into gear. "Near Carlsbad. Look for the Ranger motel, I'm about an hour out."

He ended the call, tossed the phone onto the seat beside him and gripped the wheel hard with both hands as if by holding on to it could keep himself from falling apart.

* * *

Dean pulled into the seedy motel's parking lot not long after hanging up with Sam. It looked like their usual kind of place, busted marquee flickering _vacancy_ and all. He shot off a quick text to Sam: "Here."

He slid his hand under the dash, making an automatic check of his weapons, and stopped short. His gun was missing.

He heard a click from the back seat. His eyes went to the rear-view mirror, instantly widening in shock and recognition at the grim face he saw staring back at him.

"Hi, Dean."

He started to turn, but the barrel of the gun jammed against his head. Dean stopped, bringing his hands up slowly. "Who are you," he said in a gruff voice, "and what kind of game do you think you're playing?"

"It's been a long time. Aren't you the least bit glad to see your own brother?"

Dean closed his eyes. "You're _not Adam."_

"Well. That's fine. You're no _brother_ of mine. Drive."

Dean set his jaw, dragging the shaft into gear as Adam leaned forward and reached over across the front seat. He picked up the manila folder Dean had placed there, and casually tossed it and all its contents out of the driver's side window.

Documents and photos fluttered randomly to the cracked pavement in the wake of the Impala's retreating path.

* * *

Sam looked down at his phone in confusion, then surveyed the parking lot again. There was no sign of Dean or the Impala. The lot was nearly empty, with the exception of a few stray cars parked in slots near the doors of occupied motel rooms. Had Dean gone to the wrong place? It seemed incredibly unlikely.

He stepped out of the rental Toyota and stood beside it, hitting _call,_ and feeling his sense of unease grow as Dean's phone went to voicemail.

A warm breeze blew over the lot, rustling through sparse, dry landscaping and picking up a small collection of papers that spilled out from inside a nondescript-looking file folder that had been cast upended into the middle of the lot. Something about how out of place it looked there caught Sam's attention. It didn't look discarded. It looked dropped. He walked over to the quickly scattering papers, and one of the photos flipped over in the wind, landing face-up at his feet.

Sam reached to pick it up, then stopped, feeling as if the full-color photo had just reached back to smack him full in the face.

"Oh no. No. No…"

As the wind picked up again, he instinctively stepped on several of the papers as they started to blow away, preventing them from escaping with his shoe, and he quickly gathered what he could. Realizing what he was holding, his stomach dropped.

The case files. The victim photos. _Dean._


	4. Chapter 4

Dean drove just under the highway speed limit, buying himself time.

He hadn't decided yet whether he would roll the car and try to disable or disarm his attacker in the ensuing chaos, or simply make a grab for the barrel of the gun pressed against his head while thrusting his elbow back into its skull. He was leaning toward the latter, if only for the sake of leaving his baby uninjured.

"Nice skin suit," he taunted, eyes moving up at the rear-view mirror to see if he was drawing any reaction out of the thing holding the gun. "Reminds me of a brother I had once."

Adam's eyes remained straight ahead, his expression unreadable.

Dean continued, "Of course, he's dead. So I'm just trying to figure out what kind of sick fuck wears a dead kid out for a joyride."

For a brief instant, Adam's eyes met Dean's in the rear-view mirror, then flicked back down to the road ahead. "You knew I wasn't dead. You always knew." Adam said. Dean could hear the anger in his voice, but there was also an undercurrent of something so sad. It made him sound eerily detached. Distant. Broken.

Dean's grip tightened on the wheel, making his knuckles stand out in pale relief.

He stole a glance at the phone on the seat beside him, wishing for the chance to call Sam, to warn Sam.

"Get off here," Adam said, the flat, toneless quality returned to his voice.

Dean's stomach turned over as he eased into the exit lane of the highway. He was running out of time. If he had any move to make, he needed to make it.

_Sam,_ he thought intently, _if I fuck this up, you better find me._

Without warning, Dean cut the wheel hard to the right, sending the Impala careening onto the shoulder of the road, tires skipping. Adam was thrown across the back seat to land off-balance against the side door. Dean slammed on the brakes, and they both lurched forward. Adam tumbled forward in a heap and came up struggling to untangle himself just as Dean twisted around and grabbed hold of both his wrists, holding the gun pointed away.

They wrestled for control of it, Dean keeping Adam pinned against the back seat. He nearly succeeded in prying the weapon out of his hand, inching his fingers back and away. And then, a shot fired.

The force of it threw Dean back with the impact, his vision exploding into sparks.

Something was digging into his back. It might have been the steering column. He put a hand out to push himself up and felt himself being lifted instead, pulled, dragged.

He kicked out with everything he had, connecting solidly with the body pressing down on him, but he was losing the fight with consciousness. He couldn't see. Couldn't make his muscles respond the way they should.

_No._

_Sam. _

He reached for the phone, fingers closing on nothing.

_Need to._

* * *

He came back to consciousness slowly.

The ache in his shoulder throbbed in time to his heartbeat, which he latched on to as reassuring. At least he still had one.

He tried turning to the side and discovered that the surface he was laying on was cold and unyielding, and that his hands were tied wide apart above his head.

His breath caught. This position meant bad things, having spent thirty years pinned on a rack like this. He'd broken like this.

Dean forced himself to push the panic down, to breathe. Feelings were a luxury he couldn't afford and didn't want. He yanked at the ropes at each wrist, finding that not only were they securely knotted but that his feet were tied down as well. He brought all of his focus to his right hand, working to get just one hand free. Find just a little give. Then a little more. Keep going. Don't think about anything but the task, the outcome.

He worked at the rope until the skin of his wrist was torn and raw, his fingers numb and slick with his own blood, and still he couldn't feel any progress. Dean banged his head back against the table with a yell of frustration, yanking ineffectually at the ropes.

He heard someone laugh, bitter and breathy.

Dean turned his head toward the sound, twisting as far as he was able to against the ropes, struggling again, no matter how useless it was. "Dammit, who's there?" he shouted. "Adam?"

"Dean." Adam stepped into Dean's line of sight, a long, sharp knife evident in one hand. "Don't worry, Sam should be here soon."

"What are you talking about? Where's Sam?"

"He's coming. I left a trail."

"Don't you fucking dare touch him. You son of a bitch!"

Adam pressed his lips together. "That's… my _mom_ you're talking about, Dean."

"Adam…what…"

"It's okay, it's okay. Really. You're not going to die. I just need to hurt you. It's for Sam. I need Sam."

"You leave Sam out of this," Dean growled.

Adam reached out and touched a finger to Dean's lips. Dean jerked his head away.

"Sam… _is_ this," he said with an odd gentleness, as if the words explained everything, as if revealing a closely kept secret.

"What?" Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. He couldn't tell if was having trouble understanding because of blood loss or because the words really weren't making any sense. "Adam, listen—if you're Adam, then how…?"

Adam laughed again. "I forgot what _birds_ sounded like. When I heard them again, I didn't know what they were."

Neither said anything for a long moment. Dean frowned, trying desperately to read the man standing over him.

"How are you here?" he asked evenly.

Adam smiled.

"I made a promise," he said.

The first cut into Dean's arm went deep, and he couldn't hold back the scream.

* * *

Two-hundred years ago, Sam knew he wouldn't have been able to read Adam like this. And Adam wouldn't have been able to play him so perfectly.

Sam angrily swiped at contents of the case file laid out on the passenger's seat beside him, sending papers scattering to the floor of the car.

The victims were a message. Each one was a point on a map. He saw it now, when before all he could see was his own Hell reflected back at him.

He had run to Texas, to Amelia, exactly as Adam had known he would. He'd counted on Dean coming after him. And now he was counting on Sam putting these pieces together, plotting the course, following the trail he'd left. Finding his brother. He'd almost made sure of it. He had given Sam everything he needed to follow them, everything short of an address.

But why?

Seeing the trap so plainly laid out made him hesitate. But the thought of Dean in trouble made him reckless. Adam must have factored that reaction in too, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. Every instinct he had was telling him to find Dean. He didn't see any other choice. He needed to get to his brother.

_Maybe it's not really Adam._

The thought had occurred to him. He turned it over in his head, trying to believe it.

With a final frustrated shake of his head, he threw the car into reverse and pulled out of the motel parking lot. He drove with both hands on top of the wheel, absently pressing the scar on his hand, following the path that he knew deep down Adam had carved for him to follow.

Morning stretched into midday as Sam took turn after turn through a burned-out section of one of the industrial districts downtown, combing the streets where he suspected Adam's trail led. He finally spotted the Impala parked in a narrow, dark alleyway between two abandoned factory buildings. And then he heard screaming.

Gun drawn, he kicked the door in and ran toward it. _Oh God,_ it was Dean. He knew it was Dean. He could hear the limits reached in his brother's voice, and he stopped himself from drawing images from it. He let himself be led by it, guided by the sound and by the pure need to _kill_ whatever was causing it.

The scream cut off abruptly as he reached a second door. Sam burst through it, and found himself staring right back into Hell.

Dean's eyes met his. "Sam… no."

And Sam had just enough time to feel like a fool before his arms were seized from behind and he was pushed to his knees.

* * *

_To be continued._


	5. Chapter 5

**Content Warning:** The following chapter deals with rape. Reader discretion advised.

* * *

It was suddenly hard to breathe, and Sam wasn't sure if it was because the air the room was so thick with the smell of blood and sweat or because he could hear the labored way Dean was breathing in shallow, jagged gasps that let part of a moan slip out with each exhale. It was a tell of Dean's that spoke volumes about how much pain he was in, and it made Sam feel slightly frantic with the need to be at his side.

And then there was Adam, the brother Sam had last seen tied down in a position much like he was holding Dean, bleeding in much the same way.

"Adam," Sam said. There were four other men standing behind Adam near the table where Dean was laid out, their eyes glinting a deep, pitiless, demon black. Sam couldn't see the eyes of whoever was holding him from behind, but he was certain that man was possessed as well. "I knew it was you."

Adam smiled and looked down at the knife in his hands. "I had a feeling you'd figure it out."

"What did you do to my brother?" Sam demanded, already knowing the answer but needing to be the one asking the questions.

Adam grinned at Sam. "Do you like it? This is for you."

Behind Adam, he saw Dean's eyes close and his hands curl loosely into fists, whether in defeat or exhaustion, Sam couldn't tell.

Sam struggled to break the hold the demon had on him, but the man's grip dug into Sam's arms like iron. "Stop it, Adam," he pleaded. "Don't do this."

Adam came over and crouched down in front of Sam, resting his forearms lazily on his knees, the knife dangling between them. "I have a job to do, Sam. I have a message for you. Lucifer sends his love. And he says he'll see you soon, 'bunk buddy.'"

Sam flinched. "No…"

Adam stood up and brought his hand back, striking Sam hard across the face. It sent a sharp pain through his jaw. "You don't get to say _no._ I promised him. You owe me. You left me there, Sam. In—in that _place_ with them."

"Leave him alone!" Dean's voice was rough, his lips swollen and split but Sam heard every bit of the defiance and venom his brother loaded into it, and it steeled him.

Adam saw the look of silent acknowledgement that pass between brothers, the composure Sam drew from it.

He gave a small, ironic smile, shaking his head. "You guys. Always looking out for each other. That's what brothers _do,_ right? That's sweet." Then he addressed the demons on either side of Dean. "Why don't you guys find somewhere _safe_ to keep my big brother for now?"

"No!" Sam shouted. "Don't touch him!"

The tallest of the four men slipped a knife through the ropes binding Dean's arms, and Sam's heart sank when he saw Dean try to make a move to get up and fall back weakly against the blood-smeared table. "Just let him go," Sam begged. "You have me, right? You don't need him."

"You don't know how right you are," Adam said.

A jolt of emotion ran through Sam's whole frame as he realized what he'd said. "No—Adam! You—"

"Sam, _Sam._ You're so predictable. I did learn at least one thing from watching them play with you." He watched impassively as Dean let out a sharp cry of pain as two of the demons each pulled one of his injured arms over their shoulders, forcing to his feet between them. He looked dangerously pale and unsteady.

"Dean," Sam called out to his brother, ignoring Adam and his monologue. "Dean, you all right? I'm right here, man."

Dean tried to lift his head and focus his eyes. He blinked hard. Then his legs seemed to give out and he sagged limply between his two captors.

"Dean!" Sam nearly broke free of the demon holding him back, but the bruising grip held him immobile. "Dammit! Let me help him. Please!"

"That's the thing, Sam. I _know_ you. I know what to hold over you to get exactly what I want from you. Lucifer could get _anything_ from you. You remember?"

The words slid through Sam's mind like water through a sieve. He felt himself separating. A familiar numbness began to creep over him as he watched, detached, while the demons dragged his unconscious, bleeding brother from the room.

_I'm offering you a choice, Sam. You can make this stop. All of it._

"Not _anything,"_ Sam said. He met Adam's eyes intently. "Not anything."

"I learned what works." Adam went on as if he hadn't heard, or it didn't matter. "Threats work on you. The threat is always worse than anything anyone could do to you. Your mind does all the torture for you."

Sam shook himself, tried to shake off the encroaching numbness, make his mind stay present, in one piece.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"I _protected_ you," Sam let the injury in his voice show. "We were there for each other. When they promised to leave me alone if I hurt you, I _didn't,_ Adam. I never would."

"And then you left me."

Sam glared up at him. "What do you_ want_ from me? You're a demon now, is that it? You get off on torturing people the same way they did to you? You're one of them?" He jerked his chin at the two demons still standing near the table where they'd tortured his brother.

"I don't get off on this, Sam. You know me better than that. I'm still me, I'm not a demon. I came back for you. Even though you never came back for me. I guess that makes me the better brother."

He reached out and tucked a strand of Sam's hair behind his ear. "At least, that's what Lucifer tells me."

"I—I don't… You're _out_, Adam. Why… I don't understand."

Adam walked a few paces away before he stopped between his demons and turned back to look at Sam steadily.

"I owe Lucifer a lot, Sam. After you left, _he_ protected me from Michael. He helped me find the way out. It was a cage built for angels, after all. Not humans. There was a crack, and we found it. He helped me escape. He made sure I had demons to guide me through Hell and back to Earth. I owe him everything. I owe him _you."_

Sam felt like the ground was dropping out from under him. A nauseating, dizzying sense of dread crawled over his skin. He wrenched his arms violently, futilely against the vice-grip of the demon behind him. "You don't owe him. Adam! Don't you see, he's _using_ you! But you're out now. You got away from them, don't do this!"

"I made a promise, Sam. That I would find you and bring you back home."

Sam watched Adam with a growing sense of alarm as realization dawned on him. This was what he might have been – without Cas to pull him out, without Dean to ground him, without the protection that Death's wall had afforded him for however brief a time. Adam's mind was holding tight to the familiarity of his own trauma, unable to give it up, refusing to process the idea that he had the power to simply walk away when hundreds of years had been spent powerless, locked on survival mode.

And he'd been down there far longer than Sam. Their only source of entertainment. Alone.

"Adam," he tried.

"See, I _know_ you," Adam said. "I know how to get you to do what I want. Threats work. It was a threat that got you here, the threat of losing Dean." He smiled, almost sadly, in a way that reminded Sam eerily of Lucifer. "And that's what's going to make you come back with me."

"No. It's not. I'm not going back, and neither are you."

Adam laughed. "You remember what the cage was like, right Sam? Or have you been up here so long you really have forgotten? Is that it?"

"I remember it," Sam said in a low voice.

"Really? Did you remember _me?_ Did you think about me at all?"

Sam swallowed the sick feeling of desperation rising in his throat.

Adam glanced back at the remaining two demons beside him and jerked his head toward Sam, and they advanced on him, one man taking hold of each of Sam's arms.

"Adam, don't!"

"This is who you are. It's who I am. Don't pretend you can just walk around up here like it never happened."

_Not real. Not real._ His right hand ached to press the scar on his left, to hear Dean's voice in his head reassuring him, _Got you out… stone number one._ He made a fist, driving his nails into the palm of his hand and feeling the sharp bite of real-world pain that grounded him. There was a moment of relief followed quickly on its heels by the sickening realization: this is happening.

"No… Adam, no. Don't!" He looked up desperately at Adam as he felt his jeans being yanked down roughly past his hips and Sam heard one of the possessed men undoing his own belt. Sam's pulse raced frantically. "Adam, don't do this. Don't. You don't have to—"

They forced him down, forward, onto his hands and knees, breaking his eye contact with Adam, and then he felt hands grip him from behind.

"That's not a threat," he heard Adam say, as if from a great distance, "it's a promise."

And then everything stopped making sense.

Blinding pain warred with the numbness threatening to close over his mind, and Sam fought not to be taken in by either.

Lucifer whispered assurances in his ear as he screamed, driving the point of the blade through his eye anyway.

* * *

The door to the smaller room opened and they released him, sending Sam stumbling into the dark space where he barely managed to catch himself against the wall.

He could make out another figure in the room, propped up in the corner, and Sam could hear harsh, uneven breathing.

"Dean," Sam gasped, dropping to his knees beside his brother.

"… Sammy."

"God, Dean, I'm sorry. How bad is it?"

Dean shifted, stretching his leg out along the floor in front of him and grimacing as he clutched his arm to his left arm to his side. "It's not bad. He just meant to make it look bad. Apparently I make excellent bait."

Sam put his hand on the wall above Dean's head and leaned his forehead against it, feeling close to despair. The worse he hurt, the closer the numbness came to choking out every last piece of himself. He wondered if it meant he was dead inside, or dying.

"What'd they do to you?" Dean asked.

Sam tilted his head slightly and looked down at Dean, not wanting to move away from the support of the wall.

"Nothing," he said, surrendering another inch to the emotionless void of hurt. "Adam… he's—"

"Yeah, I get it. Adam's back from Hell somehow and he's got a chip on his shoulder. Sam, how bad did they hurt you?"

Sam looked at Dean quickly, frowning, then looked down.

"Dude, I could hear you screaming," he said gently. "What happened?"

Sam blew out a breath. "I'm fine," he said. "Your shoulder's bleeding bad, let me see."

"Sam—"

_"Please,_ Dean." Sam's hand on the wall clenched into a fist, his brow furrowed. His eyes were somewhere in the space between them.

Dean reached out to put a hand on his brother's knee. Sam stiffened. Dean gave Sam a hard look and pulled it back. "Okay," he said. He shifted his weight and slid his back along the wall, bringing himself closer to Sam, wincing from the effort. "The shoulder's the worst of it. Took a bullet, went clean through, though. Do me a favor and help me keep pressure on it."

Sam looked up at him in alarm, seeing the blood-soaked sleeve of his shirt in a new light. "He _shot_ you?"

"Bitch move, I know."

Sam muttered curses as he carefully went to work pulling Dean's shirt away to see the damage. He tore the sleeve off and wrapped it tightly around the wound. He could see the effort it cost Dean to keep his game face on, not to cry out with every jarring movement.

"I'm sorry," Sam said again.

"Yeah, well. I'll live."

Sam took in the knife wounds on Dean's arms and upper body, his jaw tightening.

He nodded, or tried too. Tried to swallow past the growing thickness in his throat. He pressed his hands down against his thighs, rocking forward, and his breath stuttered out in a sob before he could hold it back.

"Sam? Hey!"

Sam turned and leaned back against the wall next to Dean, crumpling, hiding his face in his hands with his elbows braced against his knees. He couldn't stop it. He let the anguish overwhelm him, pull him down, drown him. He could feel Dean's concerned gaze, his brother's hand on his arm, and he just wanted to disappear.

"Talk to me, Sammy."

Sam shook his head. "I tried to look out for him, Dean. I just… couldn't. Not every time. Not all the time. It was too much."

Dean was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You're talking about the cage. Michael and Lucifer."

Sam nodded.

"That is not on you, Sam. Did he say something to you that—"

"They raped me, Dean." He looked up, meeting Dean's horrified look, and immediately wished he could take the words back. His forehead still resting on his hands almost like a barrier between himself and the reality of it. "It's what happened in the cage. And here, just now. Adam was making a point."

The muscle on the side of Dean's face was twitching. "'They?'" he said at length.

"Adam's demons."

"Demons. So. More than one?"

Sam closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands again. "Three of them," he said.

Dean climbed unsteadily to his feet, what color he had to begin with gone from his face. "No," he said, looking around at the four walls that held them. "No, that is not okay. No!" He paced the length of the room, and he shouted, "You don't fucking _touch_ my brother, you assholes! You hear me?"

He stopped at one of the walls and leaned heavily on both hands against it, breathing hard. Then he drove a fist into it.

"Jesus, Dean! Don't!" Sam leapt to his feet and rushed to Dean's side, taking Dean's hand in his, running a thumb over the torn skin on his knuckles. "This is what he wants, okay? He wants us to lose it. So, don't." he said quietly.

Dean swallowed. He looked down at his hand in Sam's and clasped back hard.

The sound of the door to their room opening drew their attention, and Dean's face hardened when he saw the demons' black eyes and dispassionate smiles.

"The boss is ready for you," the tallest of them said.

Dean scoffed. "Man, Adam must have some kind of pension plan, because I can't remember the last time I heard of a demon taking orders from a human. Can you, Sam?"

"Oh," the demon said, his smile widening. "Adam's not our boss."

* * *

_ To be continued._


	6. Chapter 6

One of the demons made a move toward them and Sam stepped back instinctively, almost stumbling into Dean. Dean edged in front of Sam, pushing his brother behind him.

"The first one of you to put a hand on him," Dean said threateningly, "is gonna lose that hand."

Sam ducked his head and gritted his teeth at the sound of the demons' laughter. He wrapped his fingers around Dean's wrist, communicating a silent plea to stand down. He could see the determination in Dean fueled by rage and pure hatred, most likely all that was keeping his brother vertical, and the minute that adrenaline started flagging Dean was going to be done. Sam couldn't stop his own legs from shaking, but he couldn't let Dean down. He refused to even let himself think about falling apart. Not now.

Later. He would deal with it all later.

Just like everything else they never dealt with.

"What do you mean, 'ready for us?'" Sam asked instead, to keep them talking.

The tallest of them leered at Sam and leaned forward, lowering his voice. "You put on a good show, you know that, sweetheart? I like the pretty sounds you make."

The impact of the words didn't even have time to register with Sam before Dean was on him, one hand seizing on the demon's throat and other fist slamming into its face. The others pulled Dean off easily, tearing him away as the possessed man staggered back and laughed, wiping blood from his nose.

Dean spit curses, and Sam felt as though he were watching again from the numb place on the sidelines of his mind. _Exorcism,_ something inside him insisted, nudging its way through the fog._ Say it!_ And it seemed like something that might have been a good idea in a different place, a different time, if he were someone else who had the ability to put the words together.

An overriding feeling of _resignation_ was pulling at him, edging everything else out. Shutting out the fear and the pain. He _knew_ this feeling…

The demon with the broken nose stepped close to Dean, and Dean straightened, his stance more that of someone outmatched in a bar fight than of facing down a horde of demons. "I'll kill you," Dean promised. "Each and every one of you. Don't think I won't."

"Oh, we'll meet again in Hell, Dean Winchester. But not by _your_ doing." He reached out and took hold of Dean's injured shoulder, digging his thumb hard into the bullet wound under the bandaging Sam had made.

Dean screamed, and something broke inside Sam.

_Adam screamed. Sam closed his eyes._

Sam closed his eyes.

He felt one of them take hold of his arm at the elbow and lead him down the hallway, through the doors into the main room.

The thick, sweet smell of incense burning reached him, and he tripped as his foot caught on the threshold of the door. His eyes flew open automatically, and memories of the cage collided with impressions of the room surrounding him.

The table in the middle of the room had been transformed into an altar, and the floor around it bore a circle of complex markings like a devil's trap. They could see Adam crouched over it with a piece of charcoal, completing the inscription. Candles burned on the altar and at various points around the circle.

"Sam, you okay?" Dean said under his breath.

Sam knew he should answer, should turn and look for Dean, ask Dean the same question, give him the reassurance he needed. But it was like being caught under something heavy inside of himself. The weight of memory pressed him down far below the surface, and it was like being possessed, but with no one else stepping in to take the reins.

"Sam!"

It shook him, the tone of Dean's voice. Half authoritative order and half _don't-you-dare_ desperation. There was nothing like Dean's voice in the cage. Lucifer could mimic the sound of it but never the emotion behind it.

_Out. Got you out, Sam._

"I'm good," Sam said at last, dragging himself back. "You?"

"Yeah," Dean breathed. "Yeah, okay."

They both startled at the sound of an all-too-familiar voice behind them. "Well, aren't you both a sight for sore eyes!"

Sam exchanged a look with Dean, and Dean's expression morphed into one of exasperation. "Crowley," he said bitterly.

_Boss?_ Sam mouthed. Dean tilted his head in a _maybe_.

Adam stood up, looking rattled, rolling the charcoal nervously between his fingers and thumb. "Why are you…?"

"Just supervising," Crowley offered. "Being a good hands-on manager, you know. A little personal coaching. Never let it be said I don't care about staff. Plus…" He came stand between Sam and Dean, clasping a hand down on each of their shoulders. Dean winced and bit back a sound that Sam thought sounded suspiciously like _motherfucker._ "I have a vested interested in the outcome."

"It's under control," Adam said coldly. "Lucifer gave me the key."

"What he gave you was a set of instructions," Crowley said disdainfully. "Sam's the key."

Sam jerked away from Crowley's touch. "What—"

"He'll say yes," Adam said. "He will. Don't worry. You don't need to be here."

Crowley strolled to the makeshift altar beside Adam, inspecting things, picking things up and setting them down again. "I'm sure you're right," he said. "Just pretend I'm not here." He waved a hand. "Fly on the wall!"

Adam shifted his weight uncomfortably and opened his mouth as if he had something more to say, but then closed it again.

Crowley stepped carefully over the lines of chalk. "Excellent work, this," he said. "You take direction well. That's the mark of a good soldier, following orders."

"I'm not… following orders." Adam scowled uncertainly, looking down at the charcoal in his hand as if he suddenly hated the chalky feel against his sweating fingers. He shifted it to his other hand, rubbing the dark smudges off on his leg.

"What? Right. Of course. Well, regardless. You made the right choice, no question."

Adam looked at him. "Choice?"

"Of course, _choice."_ Crowley rolled his eyes. "To think you could have called for the angel express straight up to the pearlies the moment you set foot topside. But you didn't. And that, in my book, shows true character. That's what marks you as having real potential. I've got something special in mind for you, Adam. Once you shake off that pesky… mortal coil and all that."

Adam blinked. "Called the angels? What do you mean?"

_"Prayed,_ genius!" Crowley smirked at him, shooting a look of mock annoyance over to Sam and Dean.

Adam's expression hardened, and he picked up the knife from the altar. "I did pray. Of course I prayed. I prayed screaming. We both did." He looked at Sam. "They heard… you but not me?"

Sam looked away, sickened. _No,_ he begged silently. _Don't let that be why._

"Castiel wasn't exactly acting as employee of the month when he went in after Sam's meat," Crowley said with a smile, amused by his own joke. "And you know Death, well…" He shrugged. "I guess you found out who your true friends were soon enough."

Adam nodded, as if struggling to convince himself.

"But…" he said, turning the knife so that the blade caught the light. He looked up at Crowley, confusion knitting his brow into a frown. "I _did_ pray."

"'Course you did, like a good little Sunday schooler. Now, you ready to seal the deal here?"

Adam's grip tightened on the knife, his face darkening. "Tell me why Heaven didn't rescue me."

"Signal blocking. Call it… radio interference."

"They couldn't hear me?"

"Couldn't _find_ you," he clarified. "Oh, they wanted you out, believe me. Bad for PR. Innocent human soul trapped in the pit for all eternity? Not the kind of thing you want on your performance review, exactly. But… you know. Kind of hard to get a lock on your location. Lucky shot that poor Cas made it out with as much of Sam as he did. Did you know the angels were actually counting on _my_ demons to get you topside again just so they could drag your sorry rear up to Heaven?"

Adam looked dumbfounded. "What?"

"All you had to do was _ask._ One little _please God_ from you once you were above ground again and, well... doesn't matter now, does it? Turns out, you picked the winning side after all. Once you started running your own little torture squad up here, you pretty much wrote your own ticket back downstairs."

"I—I didn't…"

Adam looked over at Sam desperately, his eyes haunted and horrified, his fingers going slack around the handle of the knife.

The choice. There had always been a choice. Hurt or be hurt. Torture or be tortured. There had never been any question in Sam's mind. And he knew Adam had never hurt him.

"I _didn't,"_ he said to Sam, insistently.

The medical reports had all described the victims' accounts of black eyes.

_It's okay, _they'd repeated to themselves, just as Sam had told Adam. Just as Adam had told Sam. _It's okay, it's all right._

A truer picture began to form in Sam's mind, of Adam bullied by years of abuse into promising to hunt for Lucifer's escaped vessel. Of being forced to stand by helplessly as demons raped and tortured innocent people to lure Sam in, able to do nothing but keep them alive afterwards and whisper empty reassurances, convincing himself that he wasn't a pawn in Lucifer's game. That he _did_ want Sam back. Because he did. Because what other choice was there but to _want_ the one person he'd come to depend on?

But Dean? Hadn't Adam been holding the knife when he'd heard Dean screaming? Sam looked over and saw Dean's eyes locked on the demons nearest the door, and Sam wondered if he'd missed something. And the demons were trading glances that implied things around them were about to go to shit.

And Crowley was looking extremely pleased with himself.

With a wordless shout, that drew everyone's attention to him, Adam swept everything he'd assembled for the ritual off the table, then seized the edges of it and flipped it onto its side so that it came down hard on its metal edge against the concrete floor, making a surprising amount of noise. Sam felt the hands on his arms loosen, and he took advantage of moment to drive his elbow back into the demon's gut, then turn to deliver more blows before it could recover. He was glad to see that Dean had done the same and was free of the man holding him.

It wasn't a fair fight. They were outnumbered and injured, and it should have gone badly. But for some reason, the man under Sam's fists suddenly opened his mouth wide to the ceiling as if to scream just before a plume of black smoke erupted like a writhing serpent, joining the others that had escaped from their hosts in a swirling, mad dash for the door.

Sam reached for Dean and found his brother reaching back, grasping a handful of his shirt and pulling him toward the exit when he heard Adam call out for help.

He stopped, hand on Dean's arm telling him to wait, and looked back to see the tallest man stagger back, bewildered and no longer possessed, as Adam pushed himself up on one elbow, both hands clasped around the hilt of the knife that was embedded in his stomach.

* * *

_To be continued._


	7. Chapter 7

"Sam!" Adam cried, and Sam's grip on Dean's arm involuntarily tightened.

Dean's jaw was set in a hard line. "We'll call an ambulance," he said.

"He won't make it."

"Well, what do you want to _do,_ Sam? Tell me!" Dean's voice was raised, on-edge. _Go. Let's go,_ his eyes said, but Sam hesitated.

"I can't leave him, Dean," he said earnestly. " He's our brother. You wouldn't leave me."

"Sam." _This isn't Adam,_ some part of him still insisted. The cold voice behind the knife couldn't be the same kid he'd tried and failed to pull away from Michael and Zachariah. This was something darker. If not demon, then damn close. Maybe there was still enough left of Adam that hadn't been twisted and ruined by the cage for Sam to see, but Dean couldn't see it. Didn't want to see it. Not now.

Exhaustion and pain needled through him with every movement, but he gritted his teeth and moved to help as Sam bent down and started trying to lift Adam to his feet.

He wouldn't do this for Adam. Not for Adam, but for Sam. Adam was a piece of Sam's soul that had never truly been released from the cage.

Adam cried out and coughed painfully, pulling away from Sam's touch.

Crowley, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, made a _tsk_-ing noise and shook his head.

Sam spun on him with a glare. "Can you help him?" he demanded.

"Sorry. Not my area."

"Well then why are you still _here?"_

Crowley shrugged. "Personal reasons."

Sam narrowed his eyes, and Crowley smiled, holding up his hands in an expression of mock innocence. "Well, don't look like that! I'm not the one who wanted to drag you back downstairs, moose. If anything, you owe me a debt of thanks."

Adam let out a gasping half-sob. Sam turned again, his expression pained at the too-familiar sight of his bleeding and pale younger brother. "Adam, help is coming, okay? I'm gonna call for help. I promise. It's—" He stopped, cringing. _It's okay._ The words died in his throat.

It wasn't okay. None of this was.

Adam dropped his eyes away from Sam's. Then cried out and convulsed in a spasm of agony, clutching the knife in his stomach. "Please!" he whispered. "I'm sorry. Oh_ God._ I'm sorry. _Please!"_

Sam turned his back on Adam, turning back toward Dean, hating himself for doing it, but he couldn't tell Adam it was all right when it wasn't. He couldn't make himself say the words.

He kept hearing Dean screaming. What had Adam done to make _Dean_ scream like that? After everything _Dean_ had been through in his own Purgatory and Hell, what had Adam brought back from Sam's Hell to inflict on Dean, and _how dare he?_

It wasn't okay at all.

In the next moment, there was a rush of displaced air and the sound of wings, and Sam realized Adam hadn't even been talking to him.

He'd been praying.

The angel appeared as an older, African American woman with graying hair pulled back sharply into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, wearing a black polyester suit with a skirt that cut sharply below her knees. Her hands were folded primly at her waist, and her lips were pressed together in a firm line, but she looked down at Adam with something not unlike kindness.

"Adam," she said, her voice rich, warm, and husky in a way that reminded Sam of Castiel. "I need to let you know that Heaven _has_ heard you."

Adam's eyes widened hopefully. "Please," he breathed. "Please help me. I didn't… I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I'm so, so sorry."

"Please understand," she said sadly. "I only wish we _could_ have helped you, Adam. You've played such a very important role, and we owe you a great debt for your sacrifice. But your sins have made it impossible for you to enter Heaven."

Adam drew in a breath, his eyes bright with tears, and he looked at Dean and Sam, understanding. He bit his lip and nodded. "I'm going back," he said quietly, his face twisting with pain on the words. "They were right. Michael said... He told me… I don't belong in Heaven."

Sam felt short of breath. "He can't go back," he said angrily. "Not to the cage, it's not fair. He never had a choice. _I _had a choice, I chose that, not Adam. There's got to be some other… something else._ Heaven_ _took advantage _of him. You need to be asking _him_ for forgiveness!"

The angel had the decency to look regretful. "We cannot save one who is damned by his own sin."

Crowley chuckled. Everyone, including the angel, turned to look at him.

"Oh, _can't_ you?" he challenged.

The angel frowned at Crowley.

"Seems to me there's rather a precedent for that sort of thing," Crowley went on.

"I do not know what you—"

"Oh, I mean _really._ Look at the boy. Remind you of anyone? Aren't _any_ of you even asking yourselves if he's suffered enough? I mean, it's not often we have time for bedtime stories down in Hell, but the parallels _are_ a bit obvious."

The angel shifted her weight. "You're talking about Azrael," she said at length.

Dean looked impatient. "Are we supposed to know who that is?" he demanded.

The angel cast a sideways glance at him before reluctantly explaining. "One of our own, Azrael, had been condemned to Purgatory to atone for his sins. We begged our father to forgive him, but he refused, so we… We were able to raise him to heaven despite the weight of his sins by combining the strength of our grace."

"Isn't that interesting," Crowley remarked.

The angel glared at him. "Azrael had more than atoned! In our opinion, his suffering far outweighed…"

On the ground beside Crowley, Adam writhed and a thin trickle of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. Her gaze softened.

She looked around the room distractedly. "We…" she said. "I must… confer with my garrison." In a rustle of sound, she was gone.

Crowley rocked back on his heels. "Well, there's one more good deed for the logs. Till next time, boys."

"Crowley, wait!" Sam said. "Why are you helping us?"

He held up a hand, suddenly looking annoyed. "All right, let's be clear. I'm not helping you. I'm helping _me._ Lucifer's cage was a custom build, made to hold angels, not the likes of you. Evidently, you leave humans in the cage and you start to get cracks. If the cage cracks, Lucifer slips out. Odds are he'd want the old job back, and quite frankly I'm not inclined to give it up." He grinned. "I like the perks. So you can frame it any way you like, but bottom line, I need Adam to stay the hell out … of Hell. You, I've got other uses for."

"What does that mean, other uses?" Dean growled.

"You'll find out." He glanced down at Adam. "Good luck with _that,_ now."

Without another word, Crowley vanished.

Adam rocked forward, despair crowding his voice to a whisper. "Should have stayed. Sh-should have just stayed. They were right. They always t-told me. Lucifer… Michael..."

"They weren't right," Sam told him. He couldn't help it. Protecting Adam was like a reflex.

"Sam," Dean urged softly, "hospital. Now, man. Come on. Let the angels take it from here." _Or not,_ he thought to himself, willing to let it go either way for Adam but not if it meant letting Sam watch Adam die. Not after everything else Sam had just been through.

Sam felt Dean's hand on the small of his back, and he nodded, breaking eye contact with Adam.

The flutter of wings sounded again. Then again. They seemed to be surrounded by the soft sound of wings rustling and settling into place, and out of nowhere the stern, stoic faces of men and women appeared in the room all around them.

The older woman who had first spoken to Adam took a step toward him and held out both hands to him. "It's time to come home, Adam," she said with a kind smile.

Adam's grip eased on the knife in his stomach, but then he paused. He looked anxiously at Sam and Dean, and then back at the angel. "M-my brothers, too. Y-you have to promise me."

The angel looked taken aback. "They have their own Heaven. Yours is waiting. Come see."

Adam closed his eyes and reached out, letting her take hold of his hands, and a warm light began to glow from her touch. An expression of calm overtook the pain in Adam's face. Then suddenly, his eyes opened in surprise. He looked up, obviously seeing something in front of him that no one else could see.

"Mom?" he whispered, tears springing to his eyes.

The angel holding his hands blinked out of sight, taking Adam with him, carried to Heaven by an escort of angels.

Sam and Dean both seemed to exhale at the same time, apparently having both been unconsciously holding their breath.

"Can you make it to the car?" Sam asked.

"I'm driving."

"Bullshit." Sam took Dean's arm and kept a hand on him as he led him out of the building to the car despite Dean's repeated attempts to wave him off.

Adrenaline flagging, Dean leaned against the Impala and watched the world spin through a haze of pain and nausea as Sam got the passenger door open and helped him avoid hitting his head as he eased down onto the seat.

"Fuck," he said, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to make himself be coherent. "I'm… sorry."

Sam gave a small laugh. "Why?" he said, one arm hooked over the open door. Then his face wrinkled in concern and he reached out and brushed the back of his fingers over Dean's face. "Don't talk, okay. Just take it easy."

"Sam. Dammit." He reached up and caught Sam's hand. "You're hurt."

"You're worse."

Dean shook his head, biting the inside of his lip and pulling Sam's hand down so that his brother stayed close in the space carved out by the open door of the car. "No. No, I don't really think so."

"Dean…"

In a whisper of admission, he said, "I… I know what they did to you, Sammy. I do. I know." He looked down at Sam's hand and squeezed it, swallowing back tears, and Sam felt something inside him go cold.

"Aw, Dean." _Alistair…_ "No."

All Sam could do was squeeze Dean's hand back.

Dean went on, "It's different, I know. I'm sure it's – pain's different up here."

"Pain is," Sam said blankly, staring at his hand, at Dean's hand.

"Sam, I am _so sorry."_

"I should have _known,_ Dean. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you, why? Would we have talked about it?" He looked at Sam, meeting his eyes. _"You_ want to talk about down there? With Lucifer?"

Dean found himself wishing for a moment that Sam would contradict him and insist on talking things out, like he used to, like his old self. He didn't, of course. Sam's mouth drew in at the corners, and he shook his head slowly, deliberately. He recognized that faraway look, the way Sam had looked when he'd come out of his seizures, after he'd had his Hell wall broken down. Broken. Hell had broken them both, in different ways.

But this wasn't Hell, and enough was enough. Dean brought a hand up to Sam's chin, keeping Sam's gaze locked on his. "This is different, though. This happened _here_, Sam. We deal with it. Like a bruise or a busted rib."

Sam let out a shaky breath. "Dean. I just. I want to go lay down for a while. Someplace, anywhere, I don't care."

Dean smiled. "Hospitals have beds."

He looked up at Dean with a wide-eyed, pleading look he'd been using to try and get out of things ever since Dean could remember.

"Sam."

"I really don't want to, Dean. I'll be fine. Please."

"Sam, this isn't something I know how to patch up! You need a–"

Rape kit.

Dean felt sick, suddenly faced with calling it what it was. Possessed or not, three different men had raped his baby brother. Sam had to deal with the real physical and psychological fact that he'd been gang-raped. And that meant Dean had to deal with it, too. Neither of them could run away from this, and they most likely couldn't heal it in a hotel room with a first-aid kit from the trunk of the car.

He carefully brought his own fear back under control, seeing Sam watching him. "They need to check you out, Sam," he said evenly, authoritatively. "See if you need stitches, okay? And… and probably put you on antibiotics or something, just in case, I don't know. I don't even know how this works."

Sam nodded. "I-I don't either. I don't want to do this," he admitted.

"Yeah well… I'll help."

Sam's mouth crooked into a half smile for Dean's benefit. "You'll help? You're barely conscious."

Dean smirked back. "Well then, we better get a move on before I pass out on you."

Sam hesitated a fraction of a second, his face hidden by his long hair, and then reached down and laid a hand on Dean's knee in a silent gesture of thanks before straightening and slamming the passenger door closed and making his way around to the driver's side.

* * *

_End._


End file.
